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3. Dampness and Phlegm

By admin | Published September 9, 2014

If the solid portions of food are jam-packed into the stomach or their digestion is impaired by cold, chilled foods and liquids or if too many hard-to-digest foods are eaten, stagnant food may accumulate in the stomach. The stomach tries all the harder to burn these off and resembles a car stuck in overdrive. It becomes hotter in an attempt to burn off accumulation. This often results in the stomach becoming chronically overheated. This, in turn, causes the stomach to register hunger, which, in Chinese medicine, is a sensation of the stomach’s heat. This hunger then results in eating more and more and a vicious cycle is created. Overeating begets stagnant food, which begets stomach heat which reinforces overeating. Further, persistent stomach heat may eventually waste stomach yin or fluids causing a chronic thirst and preference for cold drinks and chilled foods.

 

If the liquid portions of food and drink jam the transporting and transforming functions of the spleen, these may accumulate as dampness. This plethora of water inhibits the spleen’s warm transforming function in the same way that water inhibits or douses fire. Over time, this accumulated dampness may mix with stagnant food and congeal into phlegm, which further blocks the entire system and retards the blood circulation throughout the whole body.

 

Different people’s digestion burns hotter than others. Those with a robust constitution and strong ming men, or fire of life, tend to have a strong digestion. These people can often eat more in general and more chilled, frozen, hard to digest foods without problems. Likewise, everyone’s metabolism runs at different temperatures throughout the year. During the summer when it is hot outside, we generally can eat cooler foods and should drink more liquids. However, even then, we should remember that everything that goes down our gullet must be turned into 100° soup before it can be digested and assimilated.

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2. Cold Foods and Liquids

By admin | Published September 9, 2014

If we drink or eat chilled, cold, or frozen foods or drink iced liquids with our meals, we are only impeding the warm transformation of digestion. Cold obviously negates heat, and water puts out fire. This does not mean that such foods and liquids are never digested, but it does mean that often they are not digested well. In Chinese medicine, if the stomach/spleen fail to adequately transport and transform foods and liquids, a sludge tends to accumulate just as it might in an incompletely combustion automobile engine. This sludge is called stagnant food and dampness in Chinese medicine.

 

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1. Cooked vs. Raw Foods

By admin | Published September 9, 2014

In the Tang Dynasty, the famous doctor Sun Si-Miao said that, when a person is sick, the doctor should first regulate the patient’s diet and lifestyle.

 

  1. Cooked vs. Raw Foods

 

First of all, TCM suggests that most people, most of the time, should eat mostly cooked food. Cooking is pre-digestion on the outside of the body to make food more easily digestible on the inside. By cooking foods in a pot, one can initiate and facilitate the stomach’s rottening and ripening functions. Cold and raw foods require that much more energy to transform them into warm soup within the pot of the stomach. They can impede the stomach’s digestion process.

 

The idea that eating cooked food is more nutritious than raw food flies in the face of much modern Western nutritional belief because enzymes and vitamins are destroyed by cooking. Many people think it is healthier to eat mostly raw, uncooked foods. This makes sense only as long as one confuses gross income with net profit. When laboratory scientists measure the relative amounts of cooked and raw foods, they are not taking into account these nutrients’ post-digestive absorption.

 

Let’s say that a raw carrot has 100 units of a certain vitamin or nutrient and that a cooked carrot of the same size has only 80 units of that same nutrient. At first glance, it appears that eating the raw carrot is healthier since one would, theoretically, get more of the nutrient that way. However, no one absorbs 100% of any available nutrient in any given food. Because the vitamins and enzymes of a carrot are largely locked in hard-to-digest cellulose packets, when one eats this raw carrot, they may actually only absorb 50% of the available nutrient. The rest is excreted in the feces. But when one eats the cooked carrot, because the cooking has already begun the breakdown of the cellulose walls, one may absorb 65% of the available nutrient. In this case, even though the cooked carrot had less of this nutrient to begin with, net absorption is greater. The body’s economy runs on net, not gross. It is as simple as that. Of course, we are talking about light cooking, and not reducing everything to an overcooked, lifeless mush.

 

This is why soups and stews are so nourishing. These are the foods we feed infants and those who are recuperating from illness. The more a food is like 100° soup, the easier it is for the body to digest and absorb its nutrients. The stomach/spleen expend less energy (i.e. Function of digestion), therefore, the net gain in energy is greater. This is also why chewing food thoroughly before swallowing is so important. The more one chews, the more the food is macerated and mixed with liquids, in other words, the more it begins to look like soup or a stew.

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Chinese Medical Dietary Recommendations

By admin | Published September 9, 2014

In order to get the most out of acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine, it is very important to support your treatment with proper diet and lifestyle. In Chinese medicine, there is a saying, “Seven parts nursing, three parts treatment.” Nursing in this context means diet and lifestyle modifications.

According to Chinese medicine, every food has both a “nature” and a “flavor”. A food’s nature is its effect on the temperature of the body. For example, if someone suffers from a cold disease, they should avoid cold-inducing foods and eat more warming foods, and vice versa. Likewise, each food has one or more of the six flavors: sour, bitter, sweet, acrid (spicy), salty or bland. Each flavor is associated with one of the main internal organs and has its most powerful effect on that organ. This means that whether a food is good or bad for an individual person is entirely dependent upon that person’s Chinese medical pattern diagnosis and the nature and flavor of that food.

For further reading on this subject, see The Tao of Healthy Eating: a Guide to Healthy Eating According to Chinese Medicine, by Bob Flaws. This book also contains more information about the following common patterns and appropriate Chinese therapeutic diets.

The suggestions below are given as general guidelines and should be adjusted for each individual by a qualified license practitioner of Acupuncture and Chinese Dietary Therapy, based on Chinese disease and pattern diagnosis.

 

For Liver Qi Stagnation

Add:          Some acrid spices (ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, basil, chives and garlic)

Chamomile or mint tea

Dandelion greens

 

Avoid:       Coffee (decaf and caffeinated)

Excess sour food and drink

Sugars, sweets and artificial sweeteners

Alcohol

Nicotine

 

For Digestive Weakness (Spleen Qi or Yang deficiency)

Add:          Warm, cooked foods, cooked vegetable

Basmati or jasmine rice, soups and stews

Drink a cup of warm water, broth, soup or tea with meals

Incorporate moderate amounts of warm-hot spices, including black and white pepper, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or fennel

Rice milk is a good substitute for milk.

Choose sprouted wheat breads over processed wheat breads.

Avoid:       Cold, frozen or chilled foods and drinks

Raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw salads, lettuce

Tropical fruits, like banana, mango, kiwi, etc.

Large doses of Vitamin C

Dairy: milk, cream, yogurt, cheese and ice cream

Greasy, fatty, and fried foods

Sugars, sweets and artificial sweeteners

Alcohol, nicotine and other stimulants such as energy drinks

 

For Excessive Phlegm and Dampness

Add:          Warm, cooked foods, cooked vegetable

Basmati or jasmine rice, soups and stews

Drink a cup of warm water, broth, Soup or tea with meals

Incorporate moderate amounts of warm-hot spices, including black and white pepper, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or fennel
Rice milk is a good substitute for milk

Choose sprouted wheat breads over processed wheat breads

Mung bean soup

 

Avoid:       Overeating in general

Excess intake of oils and fats, including fatty meats

Raw fruits, raw vegetable, raw salads

Dairy: milk, cream, yogurt, cheese and ice cream

Sugars, sweets and artificial sweeteners

Nuts and nut butters

Wheat products

Alcohol

Oats

 

For Damp Heat (Liver/Gallbladder, Large Intestine or Lower Burner Damp Heat)

Add:          Warm, cooked foods, cooked vegetables

Basmati or jasmine rice, soups and stews

Drink a cup of warm water, broth, soup or tea with meals

Mung bean soup

 

Avoid:       Hot spices, spicy foods, especially hot peppers

Oranges and other acidic high sugar fruits

Excess intake of oils and fats, including fatty meats

Dairy: milk, cream, yogurt, cheese and ice cream

Sugars, sweets and artificial sweeteners

Nuts and nut butters

Tomatoes

Alcohol

 

For Blood Deficiency

Add:          Small amounts of lean red meat: beef or lamb

Small amounts of animal protein: chicken, fish or eggs

Soups, broths, stew and warm foods in general

Yellow, orange or red root vegetables: carrots, beets, squash, yams, and sweet potatoes

Cooked leafy greens: kale, collard, bok choy, watercress, spinach, and broccoli

Best fruits: cherries, red grapes, and raspberries: preferably cooked or dried

Black beans

Black sesame seeds

Avoid:       Total vegetarianism, raw, uncooked salads and vegetables

Raw fruits can be eaten if at room temperature and followed by a cup of tea or warm water

 

For Blood Stasis

Add:          Moderate amounts of alcohol, preferably red wine

Moderate use of warm spices, like cinnamon, cloves, fennels, black, and white pepper and cardamom

 

Avoid:       Greasy, fatty or fried foods

Dairy: milk, cream, yogurt, cheese and ice cream

Overeating in general

 

For Intestinal Dryness

Add:          Prunes, pears, figs, almonds, sesame seeds, walnuts and aloe vera juice

 

Avoid:       Use of warm, drying, hot spices

 

For Liver Stasis transforming into heat, upward flaming of Liver Fire, ascendant Liver Yang, Hyperactivity, Heart Fire, Stomach Heat or Fire Patterns

Add:          A Moderate intake of cooling foods, including celery, melon, cucumber, zucchini, plus same general dietary suggestions for spleen deficiency, bur exclude warm-hot spices

Drink chamomile or mint tea

Dandelion greens

 

Avoid:       Greasy, fatty or fried foods

Warm, hot spices and spicy foods

Alcohol

For Lung Weakness

Add:

Cooked or dried pears, walnuts, loquat, lily bulb

 

Avoid:

Cigarettes

 

For Kidney Yin Deficiency

Add:          Lean meats and fish in general, some shellfish, eggs, and the same suggestions for spleen deficiency except the use of warm-hot spices.

 

Avoid:       Excessive use of warm-hot spices, alcohols, caffeine, sugar, sweets and artificial sweeteners.

 

For Kidney Yang Deficiency

Add:          Add warm-hot spices, especially ginger and cinnamon, walnuts, onions and garlic

 

Avoid:       Chilled frozen foods and drink, raw, uncooked fruits and vegetables, coffee (both decaf and caffeinated), other stimulants and energy drinks.

 

Other personalized dietary suggestions:

In general, everyone should try to eat fresh food, freshly prepared, preferably organic, with a minimum of chemicals, preservatives or additives. It is also important to eat local seasonally available produce. In addition to a healthy diet, it is vitally important to get adequate physical exercise and rest. Diet, exercise and rest are the three free therapies that are the foundation of good health.

 

  • Exercise: at least 30 minutes of MODERATE activity, 5 times per week
  • Internal Exercises: Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, Meditation
  • 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar twice a day
  • 8+ hours of sleep
  • 6+ glasses of water
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New Study Reveals Acupuncture Benefits For Women In Menopause

By admin | Published September 1, 2014

menopause-acupuncture-01Natural menopause – the absence of menstruation for longer than 12 months – often comes with a wide range of unpleasant symptoms, such as insomnia, anxiety, irritability, night sweats, and of course hot flashes. However, a recent study found acupuncture to reduce or even eliminate some of these systems, improving quality life and reducing stress/anxiety in women going through menopause.

Researchers at Taipei Medical University in Taiwan monitored 869 participants who are were going through menopause while using 12 different treatment methods. One of the 12 treatment methods was acupuncture, which surprisingly proved to be the most effective at relieving the discomfort associated with menopause.  continue reading »

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